History of Ceylon Tea

(Extract from a Hundred Years of Ceylon Tea – Published 1967)

"Wherever tea trees grow, the place, whether a mountain or a valley, is sacred."

'DRINKING OF TEA: RULES OF HEALTH'
Japanese, Twelfth Century

Sooner or later some crew-cut scholar, burrowing away in the computerized library of a Middle West University, will devote a few years to sorting out the legends which surround the origins of tea, and publish the results in the form of a heavyweight thesis. Pending these much-needed excavations, however, the cause of accuracy and common sense would be well served if everyone writing about the tea plant were content to state simply that Camellia sinensis was cultivated, and the infusion of its leaves enjoyed, throughout the Chinese Empire a very long time ago.

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